4.13.2011

The Mumbler

Leo has a new stim. I'm not sure what to make of it -- he's started mumbling, and he started about a week ago.

We've recently changed his meds (more on that later), so it's tempting to attribute the mumbling to the remix -- but I've also become leery of jumping to coincidental conclusions, especially as he changes his stims every couple of weeks.

What I do know -- he's talking in the back of his throat, keeping his teeth clenched. It's near-unintelligible, and I'm being a mean awful mom in not giving him what he's asking for even if I can understand the verbal mush, not until he moves those lips and gives me words that could be reasonably understood by casual bystanders.

The mumbling seems to be for requests only, or when he's thinking about having to talk, because last night when he was playing "Jump on Daddy!" those words were loud and articulated with Henry Higgins-like precision. Much like the way his sisters are polite reflexively and when halfway asleep, yet often rude when wide awake and requesting desperately.

So, what do you think? A new stim, an affectation, anything anyone has seen before? SLPs?

5 comments:

My son did this too. While I can't tell you the "why's", what I can tell you is our SLP directed us to do the same thing you are doing. Don't give in.

Here's how it went down: My son would garble something at me. I knew what he wanted (because usually us moms do), but I would do something totally off base. If he wanted juice, I would bring him a shoe. When he looked at me all crazy, I would very non-chalantly say, "oh, I'm sorry. I thought you said shoe." And he would have to repeat himself. This was actually one of the easier fixes we had to deal with. I don't remember it lasting all that long, and it did make for some funny moments. Hopefully Leo's will be shortlived too.

But of course,, report it to the doc. We also had a scary episode where I thought Jaysen had Tardive Dyskinesia from his med change, and it actually turned out to be Tourette Syndrome. Who'd of thought?

Def. tell doc about it. Depending on what changes were made and how much of a shift (up OR down, doesn't matter when you're messing with the CNS), it could easily be the meds. Sometimes, we've seen even slight changes in Nik's meds have dramatic *temporary* effects on his abilities...especially eating and communication.

Could easily just the stim-of-the-week, but if it's not, you want to know as soon as possible.